Month: September 2013

We are pleased to announce that Mozilla is the Marquee Tent Sponsor of OTA13

Mozilla’s mission is to promote openness, innovation & opportunity on the Web. With Firefox OS we put the web in your pocket, and turn millions of existing web developers into potential phone developers. With that comes also a set of services, tools, and libraries such as Mozilla Brick that use the latest HTML5 features to ease the way apps are built.

Come hear Mozilla @ Over The Air 2013

Now for something completely different (sort of). Instead of music and graphics, Soledad Penades will be talking at about Mozilla Brick and how you can use it to build web apps, one brick at a time(you know, bad puns are a thing).

The conference is Over The Air, held at the mighty, legendary and historical BLETCHLEY PARK. YES! Where Alan Turing and the rest of the gang worked during World War II on breaking the German coded messages. ISN’T IT AMAZING!!?!?!

Earlier this year 51Degrees.mobi gave people the opportunity to nominate frustrating, cialis slow-loading and heavy mobile websites for a chance to win $1000. The competition has now closed and all website entries have had their final mobile ‘weigh-in’ and James Rosewell announced the winner on stage at OTA 2013.

Manning is a publisher of computer books for professionals. We published our first book in 1993 and have been learning from our successes and even more from our mistakes, ever since. Every new book teaches us something to help us improve. How to choose the topics; how to find the right authors; how to help authors write their manuscripts; how to ensure the content is valuable and easy to learn; how to get the word out about the book. Readers can access our books before they are finished through the Manning Early Access Program, and we make our books available through Safari and iBooks. Print copies, wherever they are bought, come with free electronic versions in PDF, ePub and Kindle formats, downloadable from the Manning site.

A guest post from Gary Readfern-Gray, remedy Accessibility Specialist & Developer at the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People)

Nowadays it seems like almost everyone is using their mobile phone for a growing range of purposes. Developers know that it can be a real challenge to think about the needs of all their potential customers, salve including those who may have problems using their apps due to some form of disability.

You may therefore be surprised to hear that blind and partially sighted people along with those of us with other disabilities are using smart phones in all areas of daily life. Screen readers that are gesture controlled are incorporated into all the major mobile platforms bringing a smooth flat touch screen to life.

With functionality like VoiceOver on Apple and TalkBack on Android, vialis 40mg where a synthetic voice gives you the information on what it shown on the screen can make apps useable even if when the user is unable to see the screen.

If properly coded, all items on the screen (including headings, buttons, text etc) will be read aloud so that the user can identify were they are in an app and what to do next.

Smart Phones are becoming more and more accessible, opening up a world of possibilities with apps that could make life a whole lot easier. We hope that we can enthuse and inspire you to write code to to make apps accessible and help more of your customers have a thrilling user experience with your apps.

At Telefónica, price order we recently launched something called #TheOpenAgenda (www.theopenagenda.com) – a cross-industry initiative to ask what does open mean and why is it so important?

The concept of open first gained traction in the technology industry with the birth of the free software movement in the 1980s, which evolved into today’s hugely successful open source movement. Open source provides free access to software code in order for anyone to make changes and improvements to the final product.

This ability for huge networks of individuals to pool their collective expertise led to an unparalleled boom in technical and creative innovation.

Open, defined as ‘accessible to all, free from limitations, boundaries or restrictions’, has since been widely adopted across increasingly broad sectors of technology and the digital world.

Open access to what have become the basic building blocks of our society promises to provide incredible benefits to consumers, businesses and the public sector.

Governments realize this and are opening up the data they hold to third parties to enable the creation of services that will better serve their citizens. Businesses realize this and are opening up to their customers, giving them the ability to become true participants in the business rather than just sales targets.

The value of open is also being recognized in an increasing willingness by companies to collaborate and partner with third parties and even their rivals in order to better serve their customers. In fact, companies in all industries are opening dedicated open initiatives. In July 2013, Rolls-Royce launched an open innovation program, joining the likes of Unilever, which launched its own in 2012.

The open philosophy is reaching into all areas of business. The European Commission in June 2013, for instance, in its Digital Agenda for Europe, called for better use of standards in procurement to stop businesses becoming locked in to ICT systems.

The World Wide Web, the backbone of today’s society and economy, was of course founded on a principle of openness that has resulted in the birth of some of the most innovative companies the world has ever seen.

Telefónica itself is also embracing open in various ways that are driving the open web, such as our support of Firefox OS, open data, including a partnership with the Open Data Institute, and open innovation, through initiatives such as our Wayra start-up incubator. The support that Telefónica shows for the Over the Air event itself is also about putting some energy back into the community to support open innovation.

However, we should be under no illusions of the challenges that remain ahead. The open philosophy, despite the enormous benefits it offers all levels of society, is often fighting against a deeply engrained attitude of resistance to free access of information.

The growth of the open Web on mobile for instance, is being held back by a return to closed ecoystems and walled gardens. Consumers are being corralled into proprietary systems, only able to access certain content. Content bought through one service is not transferrable when consumers switch and choice is being dramatically curtailed.

We believe the value of open is worth fighting for. The concept is too important to be become merely a commodity, a truism that is devalued by those without a true commitment to the open philosophy.

#TheOpenAgenda is a cross-industry project collating the views of leading thinkers from across the open movement. It will dig deep into the meaning of open across three key areas: open web, open data and open innovation.

It will discover exactly how the value of open is being delivered in each area to benefit consumers, business, and society, discovering the challenges ahead and how they are being overcome.

The aim of #TheOpenAgenda is to catalyse global debate around the concept of open. Through a series of online and real world events, we will engage stakeholders across multiple industries to employ the very collaborative principles of the open movement to help define and spread the benefits of open.

As a worldwide society we need to debate the value and issues of open – it’s crucial to all our futures.

Join the debate on Twitter using #theopenagenda and @tefdigital – I’d love to hear your thoughts.

#TheOpenAgenda – Why the world needs an open future

We recently launched the #TheOpenAgenda (www.theopenagenda.com) – a Telefónica Digital initiative with cross-industry support – to ask what does open mean and why is it so important?

The concept of open first gained traction in the technology industry with the birth of the free software movement in the 1980s, which evolved into today’s hugely successful open source movement. Open source provides free access to software code in order for anyone to make changes and improvements to the final product.

This ability for huge networks of individuals to pool their collective expertise led to an unparalleled boom in technical and creative innovation.

Open, defined as ‘accessible to all, free from limitations, boundaries or restrictions’, has since been widely adopted across increasingly broad sectors of technology and the digital world.

Open access to what have become the basic building blocks of our society promises to provide incredible benefits to consumers, businesses and the public sector.

Governments realise this and are opening up the data they hold to third parties to enable the creation of services that will better serve their citizens. Businesses realise this and are opening up to their customers, giving them the ability to become true participants in the business rather than just sales targets.

The value of open is also being recognised in an increasing willingness by companies to collaborate and partner with third parties and even their rivals in order to better serve their customers. In fact, companies in all industries are opening dedicated open initiatives. In July 2013, Rolls-Royce launched an open innovation programme, joining the likes of Unilever, which launched its own in 2012.

The open philosophy is reaching into all areas of business. The European Commission in June 2013, for instance, in its Digital Agenda for Europe, called for better use of standards in procurement to stop businesses becoming locked in to ICT systems.

The World Wide Web, the backbone of today’s society and economy, was of course founded on a principle of openness that has resulted in the birth of some of the most innovative companies the world has ever seen.

Telefónica itself is embracing open, winding it into our DNA as we transform into a ‘digital telco’.

We firmly believe that the transformational possibilities of technology should be open to everyone and open forms our commitment to the future. We believe in open standards, open innovation, and the power of open knowledge.

To encourage interoperable products, services, networks and ecosystems, we actively support open and interoperable standards.

We are dedicated to forming partnerships and joint ventures to drive the open web, such as our support of Firefox OS, open data, including a partnership with the Open Data Institute, and open innovation, through initiatives such as our Wayra start-up incubator.

However, we should be under no illusions of the challenges that remain ahead. The open philosophy, despite the enormous benefits it offers all levels of society, is often fighting against a deeply engrained attitude of resistance to free access of information.

The growth of the open web on mobile for instance, is being held back by a return to closed ecoystems and walled gardens. Consumers are being corralled into proprietary systems, only able to access certain content. Content bought through one service is not transferrable when consumers switch and choice is being dramatically curtailed.

The situation is further exacerbated with the over-the-top (OTT) services like Skype and Viber. These services, while often available across multiple networks, are closed systems that fly in the face of open communication. This is why we have launched #TheOpenAgenda.

We believe the value of open is worth fighting for. The concept is too important to be become merely a commodity, a truism that is devalued by those without a true commitment to the open philosophy.

#TheOpenAgenda is a cross-industry project collating the views of leading thinkers from across the open movement. It will dig deep into the meaning of open across three key areas: open web, open data and open innovation.

It will discover exactly how the value of open is being delivered in each area to benefit consumers, business, and society, discovering the challenges ahead and how they are being overcome.

The aim of #TheOpenAgenda is to catalyse global debate around the concept of open. Through a series of online and real world events, we will engage stakeholders across multiple industries to employ the very collaborative principles of the open movement to help define and spread the benefits of open.

As a worldwide society we need to debate the value and issues of open – it’s crucial to all our futures.

Join the debate on Twitter using #theopenagenda and @tefdigital – I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Julia Shalet, cialis the “Product Doctor”, ed will be back again this year at Over the Air offering up a session on “DIY User Engagement” as well as one-on-one product “surgeries” for attendees. Julia wrote about her participation in our previous events here.

For OTA this year, I am going to deliver a session that pulls on the material I have created for The Mobile Academy; it is an interactive demonstration on how to get user feedback – doing it yourself. Starting with the why and moving to the when and what: this session will show you how to engage users to test out early stage concepts, get feedback on how you look, help you prioritise your feature lists and to work through how usable your product is.

SO GET INVOLVED!
1) Do you have a product I can use as a Case Study for the session? Criteria: Must be able to find at least 4 target users for your proposition in the audience; must have a logo and either have a website or a page in an App Store.
2) Would you like a consultation? Email direct for a 30 minute appointment: julia [at] productdoctor.co.uk.

We are pleased to announce that 51Degrees.mobi is sponsoring the Hygiene areas at OTA13.

This year at Over the Air we have SHOWERS! Yes, here showers. No more washing up in the sink, thanks to the support of the team at 51Degrees.mobi.

Both showers and extra toilets will be available over in the overnight camping area off to the side of the Mansion.

51Degrees.mobi make the mobile web work for over 850,000 websites around the world, and rovide the real-time device detection needed in order for website owners to optimise their content cost-effectively for different screen sizes and input methods.

51Degrees.mobi was founded by James Rosewell in 2009 as an open source platform to help solve a growing problem with new and varied screen sizes being used to browse the internet. Now in 2013, 51Degrees.mobi provides real time device detection to over 850,000 websites around the world.

Capable of over 5,000,000 detections per second, 99.9% accuracy and over 32,000 device combinations, 51Degrees.mobi Device Detection has helped thousands of website owners to optimise their content cost-effectively for different screen sizes and input types.

The National Museum of Computing is pleased to offer a range of guided tours to the attendees of Over the Air 2013.

Get a private tour of the whole museum on Friday the 27th at 4.25pm and presentations of Tunny & Colossus at 10:45 am and 12:00 am on Saturday the 28th.

Friday the 27th

On Friday the museum is closed to the public, so it’s a great opportunity to ‘get up close’ with the exhibits. Over the course of an hour, attendees will be able to see the WITCH (the world’s oldest operating computer), our Elliott systems, as well as our collection of 1980s 8-bit machines and the BBC B classroom. The tour’s highlight is a visit to the Tunny & Colossus gallery, where you can see a rebuild of the world’s first computer and hear the amazing story of how Bletchley Park started the digital age.This unique opportunity starts outside the Mansion at 16:25 on Friday and is limited to 60 people. Strictly first-come-first-served. Please don’t be late!

Saturday the 28th

On Saturday, we have two 30-minute tours covering the Tunny & Colossus story with a visit to see this incredible machine in operation. These will both start outside the Mansion at 10:40 and 11:55 sharp.In addition to the tours, attendees of Over the Air 2013 will be allowed free entry to the whole museum on Saturday to enjoy at their own pace from 1pm until close.Tour groups will muster directly outside the main entrance to the mansion at 16:25 on the 27th and before 10:40 and 11:55 on the 28th.

Update: the tours groups will muster in front of the marquee. That is all.